Christmas in a Thrift Shop

From bent, denuded Christmas trees to a papier-mache Santa, this is where decorations go to die. The real spirit is elsewhere.

Frederica Mathewes-Green and her daughter, Megan, visit a thrift shop a few days before Christmas. Adapted from "At the Corner of East and Now: A Modern Life in Ancient Christian Orthodoxy" (Putnam).

Ken Myers, host of the Mars Hill Audio Journal, once said, "To get an overview of our current culture, stand in a 7-11 and turn around 360 degrees." The "cultural artifacts" visible in such a sweep, he said, would tell us a lot about what we value.

It is a few days before Christmas, and my daughter Megan and I are standing in a thrift shop. I can turn 360 degrees here and see a whole different world from the one at the 7-11, but one no less revealing of our culture. The difference is, everything here is something that somebody didn't want anymore. It's an index of what we no longer value. For this reason I find a thrift shop a sweet place to be, tender and forlorn. Still, it carries a dash of hope. Maybe someone else didn't want it, but I might; I believe in the Resurrection.

Advertisement

We pause just inside the door of the shop, a cavernous place that I suspect was originally a grocery store. The inventory of a thrift shop is unlimited; anything anyone might buy and then discard ends up here. Near us there are used magazines, old vinyl records, children's clothes, and shelves and shelves of books. The windows are framed with lights and plastic greenery, and clothes strung up on hangers alternating red and green. Several bent, denuded Christmas trees stand near the door, leaning like convivial drunks.

Advertisement

We stroll toward the shelves of Christmas decor. She is humming "O Come All Ye Faithful," and it makes me want to rest my head on her shoulder and just listen. We pass boxes of old glass ornaments, artificial wreaths, and a string of plastic popcorn that looks pre-chewed. There are various incompetent Santas: one with pursed lips and narrow eyes glowers from a homemade ceramic cookie jar, and a walking wind-up Santa looks ghoulish with his scalp removed and brainworks revealed. There is a mug shaped like Santa's head, which causes Megan to say, "Can you imagine this? If you had hot chocolate in it, the inside of his head would be brown and steaming."

Advertisement

All this Santa business has nothing to do with St. Nicholas, the fourth-century bishop of Myra whose feast was a few weeks ago. Though St. Nicholas was a kindly man who loved children and rescued prisoners unjustly condemned to death, he was not always mild-tempered. At the church council which considered the theological innovation of Arianism, St. Nicholas got so frustrated with Arius that he struck him. For this outburst the leaders of the council expelled him from the assembly, but later reinstated him following a series of dreams indicating that the Theotokos's sympathies lay with St. Nicholas.